If you’ve been following me for a while, you may remember my post back in January or February about my DIY Hidden Pantry. This pantry was very helpful, and very convenient, however over time, the screws began to pull from the wall since we didn’t use drywall anchors. Also, the pantry was too small for all the snack foods I had and needed to store. We eventually began to store bags of chips on the fridge just because they wouldn’t fit in the space anymore.
Josh and I want to eventually put in built in cabinets around the fridge, however, we want to see how we can use our space in the meantime. So, we decided to get a shelf from target, and if it’s very useful, we’ll eventually add doors, or install all built ins. With built ins, we hope to also re-arrange our washer & dryer, but one step at a time.
The shelf we got is the 5 shelf bookcase from target, and we picked the color black. It was easy assembly, and gave us so much more space. Each shelf holds 30 pounds, and the shelf is shallow enough to not interfere with the dryer door.
One thing that happened this weekend was our shower stopped working. When we first moved in, the shower was already not working correctly. The hot water knob would slip and make it very difficult to turn on and off the water, as well as hard to close it enough to prevent a leak. In September or October, Josh pulled apart the hot water knob, and was able to tighten a clamp on the cartridge. But, Sunday morning when I was about to shower, the clamp finally gave again, so Josh pulled apart the mechanism and broke the old clamp, but it needed to be actually fixed this time anyway. We turned off the water, took out the cartridge, and took it to ACE hardware to find replacement cartridges. We found two, so we could also replace the cold water too, and we also bought new handles that attach directly to the splines on the cartridge. We returned home late, but we still fixed it and with that we finally have water again. What do you think of the new knobs? Have you ever had problems with your shower handles?
Packing our Freezer (Venison)
We are not vegan or vegetarians, but my husband and I are fervently against animal cruelty. We also understand that our meals come from animals. We understand that some are against hunting, however hundreds of deer die every winter from starvation and car accidents in our area, and if hunting will prevent animal suffering and if hunting can provide food for someone, we feel hunting is worth it. We don’t enjoy the action of hunting, but our ecosystem is cruel. We also use as much of the meat as possible, and find that the meat is often healthier than normal grass/corn fed beef, and has a fat content of less than most beefs. Deer usually has a fat content of less that 5%. With that understood, Josh went hunting this weekend and managed to get a button buck. I had gone hunting with him earlier this year, but this weekend we were fortunate enough to get a small buck. We then took Sunday to process the deer and get it cut and packaged for meals. We are grateful that now we will have 36 meals covered as a result, and it is a blessing that we won’t have to spend as much on groceries in these winter months as a result. What does this mean? It means I’m going to be making a lot of recipes in the next few months using a mixture of my normal beef, pork, chicken, but now also venison. This will be my first year cooking venison, so bear with me as I try new recipes and give you alternates to Venison if you want to try the same recipe. As you can see my freezer is now mostly meat and frozen meals, so please consider subscribing or following if you want to keep up with everything to come!
Hello everyone. Another update into our lives in a Lustron.
Starting the day before yesterday we noticed our lights dimming whenever the heat or well pump would kick on. However, yesterday night when our furnace’s fan would kick on, the whole house would dim down to nearly off. We started by warming up some Chicken Divan in our microwave while watching the power drop, and decided that we would call once we eat, because we knew it could be a long night. We called at eight o’clock last night, and the repair technician arrived at nine. It took him an hour and a half to fixed the problem and he was on his way.
What happened? Well, As mentioned in the post “Starting Point”, we had taken down a large pine tree with our wedding money. That had been a long day because the company was supposed to arrive at noon, then one, then two, but they eventually got here at five after having to change a flat on their way over. When we got a quote from them, we had pointed out how close it was to the house and had mentioned that our electricity is run into the house near the tree. Can you see where this is going? About six thirty, they were cutting a branch and guiding it down when it pulled our 220 line out of our house, and our 120 was flickering. The electric company has been fantastic every time we work with them, and they sent out a man who came to disconnect us until the tree company could get a man in to fix the weather head. So, then he did that, he put in connectors on our lines from the road to make the hook up faster and to have a fast way to disconnect and reconnect in the future. It turns out our neutral connector had come loose, which was why all our power had been flickering.
Never a dull moment. Hopefully that is it for the excitement for a while, but we are very glad that is was an easy fix, and it didn’t cost us anything!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and Josh and I have decided to do it as just ourselves this year as our first year married. It’s also beginning to look a lot like Christmas in all of the stores. How are you on your holiday shopping? We have most of ours done, but the idea of Christmas hit me before Halloween this year, so I started very early. Don’t let the holidays stress you out. Amazon can ship really fast, and making sure you stay on top of life’s expenses is more important.
Stay tuned for some recipes over the next couple days. I’ve been doing so many posts on life updates and projects that I should really start working on my strong suit.
Our Lustron Home 